All’s well that ends well… in Bangkok

“In the end, everything will be okay. If it's not okay, it's not yet the end.

-Fernando Sabino, Brazilian writer

Sometimes you plan a trip to perfection, every detail including the location of your banana bread breakfast all figured out. But a lot of the time, even the best made plans crumble into nothingness and leave you wondering where you went wrong…

Anyone who has been to Bangkok in April will know what I mean when I say the hot and humid air as you come out of the plane pretty much slaps you across the face. The air-conditioned public transport is a relief, and you almost wish the train would go slower if only to put off walking to the hotel carrying your whole life on your back in the sweltering heat until a little later. And when later comes and it’s actually hotter than before, partly because your mouth is on fire after eating a papaya salad (I stupidly expected it to be sweet), you slap yourself across the face for not booking the hotel with a pool.

We planned to see Thailand's noisy capital over a couple of days while waiting for our Chinese visa, which we would apply for at the Chinese embassy. It was an irritating formality that we couldn’t organise in Spain due to January being too far in advance for travel in June - we live in a world where we are penalised for being organised. But, on the upside, Thailand was probably the only country where we would be able to afford the express service and get it all sorted out quickly. So we woke up early and hopped on a couple of scooter taxis, which felt like sitting in the doorway of a sauna: boiling hot air or a breeze on your face, depending on the speed of the traffic.

“Spanish no express!” were the first words barked at us by possibly the rudest woman I have ever met after waiting for over two hours in the Chinese embassy. Apparently Spanish people (Isma) can not apply for the express service when applying for a Chinese visa. As we frantically tried to calculate how waiting more than a day would affect our itinerary, we were told we also needed proof of the following two months of our trip (transport and accommodation around Asia), as well as a dozen absurd documents* that would “demonstrate” our respective salaries and basically prove we weren’t planning on living illegally in the world’s second largest country. Oh, and there was a bank holiday coming up which meant we would possibly get everything back too late to make our next flight. Lady Luck hadn’t just left our side, she had poked her stiletto heel right through our Havaianas as she left.

No floating market, no street food, no temples - instead, we spent the next eight hours preparing documents to satisfy bureaucracy’s cruel appetite and praying the embassy would accept them. After hours of nervously waiting around the next day… they did! However, we were told we had to be in Bangkok in four days to collect our passports - in time for our flight to Cambodia, but terrible timing for our trip to the island of Koh Tao (a night train away) which would now have to be cut miserably short.

I think a lot of us spend far too long planning our future, which just makes it all the more disappointing when things work out differently. As I write this post from an island I thought I would never get to, passport and Chinese visa in hand, I am reminded to enjoy the present, and made to remember that even the most perfectly thought out plans are, at best, set in sand.

*If we do make it to China as planned (!) a complete list of all the documents needed for a tourist visa to China will be outlined in the how much section of this blog.

Guess what I found out in Bangkok?

1. Bangkok was named the hottest city in the world by the World Meteorological Organisation. It may not be the hottest city in the world every single day of the year, but the heat is horribly consistent.

2. Thailand is the only country in south-east Asia that hasn’t been colonised by Europeans.

3. The traditional name of Bangkok is ‘Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit’, which gives it the record for having the longest place name.